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Report - The Crigglestone Tunnel, West Yorks, Nov 08

28DL Full Member

There are times when this whole exploring caper is hard. Why can't you park outside places, pop into a lovely warm cafe for a sandwich and a toilet stop before walking into wherever you want to go? I guess I know the answer but when you have spent the last 5 seconds on your back travelling down a muddy bank gathering speed trying desperately to use your tripod as a brake before you plummet into a disused railway cutting in the approaching gloom, then it would be a bit easier.
Twenty minutes of trampling through freezing November fields, getting colder and wetter, a couple of barberd wire fences and a luge down the bank, without the tea tray and we're there.
The western portal.

Luckily, those years of practice at jumping over the back of my parents settee had paid off. I was able to execute a perfect Fosbury Flop from a short curved run up, skillfully landing between the bike and garden rubbish.

This tunnel is now blocked off with an enormous concrete wall, 250 yards in. I don't know how long it originally was, I can't find anything out about it, Sadly, the eastern portal is now under thousands of tonnes of landfill. The thing sticking out is a pole in a broken drain.

It's quite wet down here, but not flooded. The brickwork looks fairly sound, and the refuges look in good shape too.

The good thing about damp tunnels is the cours. Iron ore and calcite deposits form on the walls.

Unlike the Miley tunnel from the day before, no track remains.Here is a lonely track bolt, one of the only remaining remants of the line that ran from Hunslet Lane, Leeds to Saville Town at Dewsbury

The tunnel was built by the Midland Railway tunnel in 1906, and closed in 1950. The end wall is massive, and it's an odd feeling to imagine that behind it is a filled in rail tunnel.

Looking back towards the western portal from the curve. I love the colours and the feeling you are inside a wasp. The portal itself is only 100 yards from the M1. A short tunnel, but really enjoyable never the less.